Welcome!

Thanks for visiting Chained to the Strange! If you're a first time visitor check out the links there to the right. You can find out more about myself and my crafting, and how to get some of these amazing items for yourself!
Any questions don't hesitate to ask!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

First! Want to let all my local followers that I will be attending the 2010 Total Exposure show on February (what a retarded name for a month...) 4th. It's from 6-9 at the College of the North Atlantic on PPD. If you're in St. John's I hope to see you there!

Second, want to share some pretty new items!

First is a scale choker that I'm in love with, it's so nice to just run over my hands!

Next is a simpler but even more elegant ribbon choker. I also have a larger size of this, but the ribbon isn't as pretty, too shear and doesn't give as much definition to the maille. The original version didn't have the handy dandy hidden clasp, but I added it on the advice of a friend.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Finally had a break in the studies (sort of) to add some new products to the store! Over a dozen new items, so go check it out on Artfire!

Since there are so many, I'll just show some of my favorites for now :)

Yup, that's the molecular structure for our favorite chemical!

Anyone else having flashbacks?

I made this one a bit big, but it'll look great on a larger guy! That's made from an actual network cable, I have the scar on my pinky to prove it! On a side note, network cable casings are tougher that I thought.

This is probably my second favorite item currently! <3

You may have noticed a severe lack of chainmaille this post. Have no fear! I've been trying out my new crafting supplies for making these, so have an abundance of such items. I've spent a good part of today making some more chainmaille related items to build up my stock for the upcoming months, including a couple of twists on old items! Look forward to them in the coming weeks!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

As a child born in the 80s I grew up with the joy that was shrinky dinks. Watching them shrink was always the best part, and the products generally were discarded shortly after.

Well it turns out they still exist! Found some at the local craft supply store, in the scrap booking section of all places, and quickly grabbed them up. I excitedly did up a whole page of things, debated if my hole punch was too big, and pulled up a stool in front of my toaster oven. Which I now realize really needs to be cleaned.

I did a whole selection of tetris blocks for sale, with a bit of experimenting with colors. However, my geek-gasm came with the idea of making these:

The science ones have already become my everyday wear!

Also, displaying my lovely new creations is my lovely new creation!

I started organizing my chainmaille/crafting supplies into the new container I bought (more on that next post!), and was distracted by the first item I put my hands on: my large spool of wire.

I'm really impressed with how it turned out for a first attempt. I was fearing something unusable, but it's actually pretty nice. And more stable than I gave the small base credit for. It's currently on my floor with cats running all around it, yet it's still upright!

The earrings will be up for sale once I get some nicer pictures of each one individually, so sometime this week! As you may have noticed my light box was make shift out of scrap paper.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Some time ago I used to have a blog called Double X Geeks on Today.com. I had great fun with them, but had to part ways when I started selling my chainmaille. They have a rule against advertising your own stuff there, and it put a crunch on what I could post.

I recently went through all my old posts looking for a particular picture (which I apparently never posted), but doing so got me thinking. I have find a lot of nifty stuff on the net that I'd like to share with people, but haven't because I didn't want to do a second blog. So, instead I've been ignoring this one. *That* makes a whole lot of sense doesn't it?

So, I've decided to start actually blogging again. There will still be much chainmaille to be found here, and information on my new products. There will also be posts about being a geek in the real world! I tend to focus on products I find that I want to share, but also share helpful hints, recipes, and funny pictures. I'll be attempting a 3/week schedule and see how that goes.

Look for some design changes in the coming weeks as well! I will be unfocusing the background and such a bit and adding more information. I'm not exactly sure how best to do this, but we will see! Suggestion welcome!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Been pretty busy the last few months, mostly with being sick. Participated in this year NaNoWriMo and wrote over 60,000 words in November!

Lately I've been in the process of switching over to Artfire from Etsy. If I were higher volume I might have stuck with etsy, but can't beat Artfire's free listings. I've also been feeling uneasy about some of the changes that have been happening over at etsy, whereas Artfire is growing in directions I like. I might later do a more indepth post about my switch once I've made a few sales over at Artfire and can comment more accurately.